In Your Words: Jan. 7-16 Blog Hop Schedule

Come hop along with me and visit all the blogs listed each day below for another fun Blog Hop that is sure to be filled with lots of inspiration and some give-aways too. Be sure to make comments at each stop to be entered into the big give-away on Madame Samm's Sew We Quilt blog. This blog hop is brought to you by Madame Samm of Sew We Quilt, along with Cheerleader Linda of Buzzing and Bumbling and all the participants below. Have fun!
 

Monday January 7

Stitch, Stitch, Stitch, Stitch  (Cyndi H.)

Kwilty Pleasures  (Kathy G.)

Debby Kratovil Quilts (Debby K.))

Sew Darn Quilt  (Carolyn R.)

Mary On Lake Pulaski  (Mary K.)

Traveling Quilter  (Debbie A.)

Just Let Me Quilt (Carol S.)

Vroomans Quilts (Sharon V.)

Cate's Linens (Catherine R.)

Nini and the Sea  (Denise)

Sew Much 2 Luv (Karen)

Tuesday January 8

Piece Peace (Patricia G.) 

A Stitch in Time (Patty D.)

krislovesfabric (Kris T.)

Marjorie's Busy Corner (Marjorie)

Grandmamas Stories (Jane H.)

Mrs. Pickles Garden (Hayley)

Patchouli Moon Studio (Daryl P....that's me!)

Till We Quilt Again (Helen E.)

The Slow Quilter (Felicia F.)

Quilting With Terry and the Cats (Terry S.)

Wednesday January 9

Kathy's Quilts (Kathy W.)

Sunshine Quilting (Martina S.)

Sew Incredibly Crazy (Amy)

Quilt Doodle Doodles (Cindy S.)

Doodling in My Mind (Darla R.)

I Like to Quiltblog (Bente)

Michelle's Romantic Tangle (Michelle M.)

Grammie Q's (Charlotte M.)

Dancing Moon (Carla B.)

(Betty V.)  at “that other blog”

The Fuzzy Hat Quilter (Laura Ann)

Thursday January 10

Life in the Scrapatch (Pat B.)

Just Sew Sue (Sue B.)

Nati's Little Things (Nati)

Amy's Crafty Shenanigans (Amy)

Pig Tales and Quilts (Thearica)

Scrappy 'n Happy (Jess R.)

Little Mushroom Cap (Amira A.)

Moosestash Quilting (Joan K.)

Sowing Stitches (Beulah aka. Carol)

Just Quilt It  (Kathy G.)

Friday January 11

Jane's Fabrics (Jane R.)

Jane's Quilting (Jane C.)

Nuts 4 Redwork (Heide W.)

Cherry Blossoms Quilting Studio (Cherry G.)

Bits and Pieces (Martha R.)

Life in Every Breath (Jennifer B.)

Quilting Lines (Patricia L.)

Travel Thru Greece (Mara)

Meadowbrook  (Kristen K.)

Count It All Joy!  (Denise P.)

Sophie Junction (Sophie W.)

Monday January 14

Gracie Oliver Arts (Jeanie)

Clothes and Crafts (Maria K.)

Cherrys Prairie Primitives (Cherry E.)

Simple Sew (Shirley T.)

Woolie Mammoth (Anna B.)

RocknQuilts (Mary Ann)

Celynn's Sunflower Patch (Celynn)

A Quilting Sheep (Amy)

Sane and Crazy Quilting (Cathy L.)

Quiltsmiles (Jane E.)

Feathered Nest Studio(Jennet)

Tuesday January 15

BQuiltin Studio  (Beverly K.)

Hill Valley Quilter (Britt-Inger)

Bumbleberry Stitches  (Theresa K.)

Buzzing and Bumbling  (Linda W.)

In Stitches and Seams  (Annette S.)

Englating  (Marica from Sweden)

Stitchin by the Lake  (Marlene B.)

Selina Quilts  (Selina)

Sheila's Quilt World (Sheila M.)

Words & Stitches (Beth S.)
Sew Mollie Sue, Quilt Much? (Pamela A.)

Wednesday, January 16

My Collection of Things  (Jeni K.)

Quiltin' Jenny  (Jenny)

Shade Tree Quilting (Judy C.)

(Rosemary B.) at “that other blog”

Pat Sloan, The Voice of Quilting (Pat. S.)

Dachsies With Moxie  (Agnes B.)

Sew Many Yarns (Lyndsey M.)

Tomorrows Treasures Today  (Denise D.)

The German Mom  (Tina S.)

Christa Quilts (Christa W.)

Read Quilt Cook Pray (Aletta D.)
Sew We Quilt  (Mdm. Samm)

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Purse with Metal Frame Closure

I made a little purse that I enlarged using the coin purse tutorial from Madame Samm's pattern. You can find her coin purse tutorial on Craftsy. The applique was a bit too long, but it was hard to know for sure where it would end up after I sewed the purse pieces together. I didn't raise the applique up any higher or I would have sewn the applique in the seams. I hope to make some more even larger purses too. I'll use this one for holding my hand sewing items like scissors, needle book, threads, etc.

I used batik fabric and I added an applique (light pink is handyed felt, then cotton fabric on top of that and a velvet heart on top of the cotton) and I added sequins, and beads.

The other side the applique is all handyed felt, beads & French knots.

Lining is handyed cotton fabric.

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Great Quilt Binding Tutorial!

I was reading Sew Cal Gal's posting this morning and she had a link to a wonderful quilt binding tutorial by Sharon Schamber. I have never used glue when binding my quilts before, so this was a new techinque for me. It looks easy and I will be trying this method of binding on my next quilt. I will let you know what I really think of doing binding this way once I try it. It may take some practice as well as re-learning to get this method down and memorized in my head. Does anyone already use Sharon's binding method? How do you like it?

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Knit Gnomes

I made these little gnomes with leftover sock yarn, a wine cork for the body.

Three little gnomes.

Acorn cap for a hat.

I added a piece of pipe cleaner to the inside of the hat and curled the hat,

I used a black Sharpie marker to make the eyes on the wine cork body.

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Knit Snowman

I knit this little snowman as a birthday gift for my friend Bobbie. Bobbie does beautiful applique, embroidery by hand and machine quilting, but she doesn't knit, so I thought I would knit her a little something. Happy Birthday Bobbie!

The back of the snowman.

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Knit Pullover Sweater for My Grandson

I knit this sweater for my 5-year old grandson using Lion Brand's Pound of Love yarn. It's a pattern called  Leif's Sweater from the book, "Knit Along with Debbie Macomber: Cedar Cove Collection".

I made this sweater a large size on purpose so that my grandson might get to wear it both this winter and next winter too.

 

It's knit in a basketweave stitch and seed stitch.

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Elephant Quilt

My daughter wants to decorate her dining room using Indian motifs. She has a couple of Ganesha statue nick knacks already, so I thought I would make her an elephant quilt. So I found some elephant ideas online and designed this quilt. I free-motion quilted it, added hand embroidery, sequins and flowers with buttons in the 4 corners.

Indian elephant quilt I made for my daughter.

Close look at the sequins and quilting.

Closer look at the elephant and quilting.

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Quilting Blogger Give-Away Winner is...

...AlessandraLace from Italy! Congratulations Alessandra. She is a new follower too and it was her second comment telling me that she was a new follower that landed her in the lucky number 96 spot that the random number generator picked. I emailed Alessandra the pdf tutorial.

I want to welcome new followers to my blog and hope you enjoy seeing my future posts. To my long time loyal followers, I want to thank you for continuing to visit my blog.

If you didn't win the strawberry tote bag, you can purchase the bag through Craftsy here.
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Quilting Blogger Give-Away Time

 

It's Quilting Gallery's 5th birthday and several blogs are participating by having give-aways on their blogs.  (click on the blog hop party button above to find all the participating blog links) I am joining in and having a give-away here too. Anyone who wants a chance at winning just has to leave me a comment no later than midnight (EST) December 15th to be in on the drawing. If you are a follower of my blog you can leave me a second comment for another chance at winning.

I am giving away one pdf tutorial for making the Strawberry Bag, pictured here:

Strawberry tote bag. The tote bag is stuffed into the strawberry and opens into a tote bag when opened. Makes great gifts and you can keep one in your purse to have a bag with you whenever you need one.

Good luck everyone! But if you don't win this or would like to purchase my easy step-by-step pdf pattern right now please go to my Craftsy Store. Thank you. Enjoy the Blog Hop.


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And the winner is...

...Rebeckah Austin who said: "Congrats on the 300!!! Good for you! I like how you have different tabs for different things, also that your blog is simple. It takes no time at all to load. I follow via google reader".

Congratulations Rebeckah. I have emailed you.
Thank you to all who follow my blog.
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Pajama Bottoms

I made these pajama pants for my daughter's boyfriend. My daughter bought the fabric and I made the pants. He likes Chinese dragons and this fabric was perfect.

I found this flannel fabric when I was at JoAnn Fabrics one day and there was just enough fabric to make these pajama pants. So I made these for my daughter. Both these pj bottoms are gifts for Christmas, so I hope they don't look at my blog.

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Red Knit Cardigan Sweater

This was an easy-to-knit pattern and I love how it looks. I used a wool yarn in variegated red (with touches of gray and burgundy). Remember the pinwheel sweater I knit a while back that didn't fit in the arms? Well this is the yarn I ripped out from that sweater. Yes, I ripped out that entire sweater! That's the one good thing about yarn is that you can start over again if you make a mistake or just don't like how your creation is turning out.
The sleeves of this cardigan came out too long (I should have measured and tried this sweater on more carefully). So I did end up ripping out the lower portion of the sleeves and re-knitting it shorter. I think I must have T-Rex arms and not gorilla arms, lol! I need to knit a larger size to fit in the bust as that's the biggest part of me, so the arms and everything else tends to be too large and I need to adjust everything else smaller in those other areas.

Here's a tip for wool knits: soak your wool knitted garment in cool water that you have added hair conditioner to the water and let sit for at least an hour. Then block your garment as usual. The hair conditioner makes the wool feel much softer and it smells great too. I use a good quality hair conditioner that I buy at places like Whole Foods, Trader Joe's, or other natural food stores. Good quality hair conditioners contain essential oils and other good ingredients rather than chemicals and artificial fragrances which are found in cheaper mainstream products. I have chemical sensitivities, so I only buy the good quality products.

Here's my newly knit cardigan. I bought the Mama Bear Cardigan pattern on Craftsy.

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Give-Away Time

I have reached 300 official followers! I want to thank all of you who follow my blog. All of you, my dear followers, is what helps to keep me motivated to create and post a record of my creations for everyone to see. I enjoy reading your comments too. While I know there are some who follow by email, or other ways and not officially (joining this site on the right by clicking follow this blog), it's nice to know you are there.

 

I would love to hear from you and tell me what you like about my blog, dislike, or what you would like to see in the future. I know we all follow some blogs and not others and we each have things that we must be attracted to or like about one blog over another, so I know I won't please everyone all the time, however if you have a suggestion I would love to hear from you.

 

Rules of the give-away:

1. Since this is a give-away for those of you who follow my blog (my way of saying thank you), you must be a follower.
2. Please tell me how you follow my blog (officially, by email, etc) 
3. Please make sure that I can contact you if you win. If you are a no-reply (meaning you never checked the box when you entered your email address in your profile) then I cannot contact you and therefore I will have choose another person.
4. I will choose a name Dec. 9th, so you must comment by December 8th.

This is a purse I made I am giving away to one lucky follower.

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Blog Hop Party: December 10th

December 10th is the 5th birthday of Quilting Gallery and they are hosting a blog hop with give-aways. Participating blogs will be posted there and here on December 10th. I will be participating in this blog hop and will be giving away something really great. Be sure to check my blog for details on how to win my give-away prize and to enter my give-away. You can enter my give-away starting in the evening of December 9th and through December 15. You'll have to come back then to see what my give-away will be. I will tell you now that you will get 2 chances to enter to win if you follow my blog.

 

 I was also planning a give-away once I reached 300 followers. I announced this a few weeks ago and right now I have 299 followers (publicly). So as you can see this give-away is getting really close to happening as well. I will post about this give-away as soon I reach 300 followers. It's my gift back to my followers, well at least one lucky follower :0)

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Birthday Gifts I Received

I am blessed with some really nice friends. I received these wonderful gifts for my birthday~

My friend Susan sent me this sunflower fabric and 4 iron-on fabric seed packets that I can use in a quilt, or a bag or shirt or? Well I'll see what I come up with. I really like sunflowers and cone flowers. Susan always sends me really wonderful gifts. Thanks Susan!



My friend Bobbie made this for me in batik fabrics (my favorite kind of fabric).

Bobbie hand embroidered cone flowers (lucky me I got both sunflowers and cone flowers) and my name. Bobbie does beautiful work.

This is the other side with the zipper and a beautiful zipper pull.

And in case you were wondering what it is... well a bag to carry my Ott light in of course! I use my light wherever I go. I always take it to the applique group I belong to that happens to be at Bobbie's house and so she knows I use my light. So what a great gift! I will really use this Bobbie, thank you!

Bobbie also gave me this yarn cutter.

Tara, who has a November birthday too (Happy Birthday Tara), also made this for me. It folds into a box like above. Not only did Tara give me some nice gifts, we also went out to lunch and then to a fiber art exhibit too. Thanks Tara!

When opened, Tara added pages of things on all 4 sides and this is the bottom. I knit, so this is a mini ball of yarn, knitting needles and a paper tea cup and saucer.

Here is a page that shows a photo Tara found with yarn and she knit this tiny mitten. How cute is that?

Tara made this bag from a place mat and inside the bag was a book Knit Two by Kate Jacobs.
 

Tara also made this bowl using a ribbon yarn and clothesline, but she made an opening for a ball of yarn to pull through. I have seen ceramic bowls made for yarn balls and Tara was trying to make a similar item. I think it will work for a small ball of yarn, but my large ball of yarn was a bit too large. Still it's a very pretty bowl and I love the pink color and the added flower.

This wasn't actually a birthday gift, but it did arrive in my mailbox on my birthday. This sweet little postcard was made by Annie and when I told her I would love to have her, she sent her to lucky me! Thanks Annie.

I won this Bird Brain Design embroidery pattern in the recent "Wicked" blog hop, from Pauline of Quilt-n-Queen. It arrived a couple of days ago, so while it wasn't a birthday gift per say, it arrived just after my birthday.

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